5 Tips for Managing Recess Behavior

I recently had a student who had a difficult time at recess while I was on sick leave. The situation was unsafe and left a lot of the staff frustrated. I sat down with our building principal and one of my colleagues to develop a plan for my friend. The plan is pretty elaborate and specific to his needs but I do feel that sharing out ideas for other special educators who may be in the same position will be helpful. I compiled 5 of my favorite tips for managing recess behaviors: 

 Data Collection  

Data is so important. You need data to determine the function of the behavior, and therefore establish appropriate interventions. In my case, my data was important because my student was exhibiting behaviors at recess; a time when there are absolutely zero demands placed on him. When he can choose to do whatever he wants! 

So, the first thing I did was grab my data. I had been taking data for a few weeks before the incident because my friend was exhibiting some defiant behaviors towards other adults (other than myself). He was refusing to listen to any adult in the school--- but myself. So I started my ABC chart and started collecting away. 

My data showed me that my friend was doing the exact opposite of what was being asked of him. I realized that when people were re-directing him, they were using a strong intonation and giving him a "demand". "Sit down" would cause him to purposely NOT sit down, the demand "line up" would cause him to run the other way. 

 Structure the Un-structured Recess

As a special education teacher, I know that structure is so important. My classroom is structured and consistent. Typically, recess is a student's favorite part of their day but for special education students, this can be one of the most difficult parts of their day due to the lack of structure. 

I created a visual support system that gave him options of different parts of the playground. This gave him control of which areas he would like to play on. I also had a student in the past that I did this for and we had to limit his choices due to physical limitations. We also used a time-timer to help him with transitioning. 

For the particular student that I am working with now, this student chooses what area he is going to play in. We have divided his recess into segments, and the para that is working with him will go up to him at the end of a segment, and ask if he wants to switch or stay. He will choose, and then we continue this until recess is over. 

Front Loading Expectations 

I created a visual support lanyard for myself and my para to go over with him before going out to recess. We go through the lanyard and discuss how he can earn his check marks. I decided to keep the rules to four simple, all encompassing rules so that we weren't overwhelming him with too many directions.  I also took him around the perimeter of the playground and we discussed what staying on the playground meant and where he was safe to play. 

After we go over the lanyard we have him choose a tangible reward. I decided not to use icons for his reward and actually tape the object to the visual support board. He helps me tape it to the board and I feel this is giving him a sense of control over the situation. 

Provide Visual Supports

I made a token board with visual supports to match the lanyard. After going over the lanyard and front loading the expectations, we have the student choose what he is working for before he goes outside. I have been taping the actual item to the board instead of providing a picture icon to match. Having this concrete item taped to the board is a constant reminder during recess what he is working for. My para carries it with her at recess. She also wears the lanyard. When my friend needs re-directed, she walks up and points to the board and/or her lanyard to the specific rule he needs to be reminded of. This has been working so much better! 

Playground Visual Support

Earning the Reward

Once he has done his job, my para goes over the token board and gives him his checks. If he gets all four, he earns his reward and it is given to him immediately. He is allowed to eat it then, save it for lunch, or save it for later. We wanted him to have control over when he gets his reward.

Planned Distraction 

We gave my friend a job to distract him from one of his biggest issues, lining up. My friend is now responsible for opening the door with a key fob to let the recess monitor ring the bell to line up the other students. This gives him sense of control and importance. He loves it. He is actually running to the door to get the key fob instead of running off the playground :) 

Those are my best tips on dealing with recess behaviors! It's so hard when you, as the teacher, are not outside to execute your plan. That's why having clear expectations for not only the student and staff is imperative for success! What tips do you have for recess behavior? Share in a comment below!

I have also included some other tips we are using in our plan for my friend who is having difficulty with demands:

Changing our Directives

When my data showed me that demands like "line up" and "sit down" were causing him to do opposite, I had to talk to my para's about re-phrasing how we are giving him instructions. Instead of saying "Sit down!", we are going to say "Come on over, it's time for reading" or if it's time for him to line up for a transition instead of saying "line up!" we are saying "It's time for us to go to lunch, let's get in line". This has been so hard for them. We have been working on this for a week, and it's still a work in progress, but he is responding so much better to the para's.  This is not to say that when he is unsafe, or could harm others that we aren't going to use a strict, loud demand. This is just changing the way we are talking to him during daily instruction, transition, and directives.  

Getting Other Staff in on the Plan

In order to ensure that my para was the one in control at recess, we had to discuss with the building staff what my data showed, and that having four to five adults giving my student demands was not an ideal situation. Instead, I asked them to stand near for support but to let my para manage the situation. Should she need assistance, staff would be near, but she would be the one and only person giving him instructions and directions. 

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Morning Meeting

Morning meeting is one of my favorite parts of our day! I love that it is so structured, consistent and it gets us started on the right track. When I switched over to teaching more severe students, I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to incorporate a lot into my morning meetings. In the past, we had a large hands-on calendar binder that the students used to follow along with me. When I whipped out those bad boys this year, I was like "whoa, this is not going to work" that binder may have worked for me in the past, but with this new group of kiddos I needed to cut it down. I had to totally re-structure my morning meeting and I am so pleased with the outcome! Here is our morning meeting schedule:

Student Check-In

When my students arrive in the morning, they unpack their things, and do some type of name work whether that be matching the letter in their name, typing their name on their label-makers, or practice writing it on the lines (if you'd like to see more on how I differentiate name writing, visit my instagram page! I did a post and videos of our name activities). Once those are turned in, the students "check-in" on my interactive white board. They drag their name to "here". Then they have 10 minutes of free sensory play. Why do I start their day out with sensory play? I have found that it makes transition for my students easier, and it also takes some students longer than others to complete activities. I set the timer, and when the timer beeps the students will sit down at our group table and our morning meeting begins. I pull up the "check-in" board and we talk about who is here and who is not here. We count the students in each category, we find the numbers (given a choice of 2) and then hang them on the board. We also use this time to say good morning and I like to use their AAC devices to ask them yes/no questions about students that are present or absent.

 Morning Check-In on our Interactive Whiteboard 

Boardmaker Studio

Here/ Not Here 

Free Behavior Poster

Interactive Calendar 

After we have decided how many students are at school, we go on to our interactive calendar. I use the boardmaker studio program to make my interactive calendar. Students will come up to the board and we will "cross off" the days that we have been at school. Once we complete that, we talk about any special days that month, which special we will have that day (art, music, gym, technology). Then we find what day it is on our interactive calendar. After we find the day, we sing our days of the week song and use sign language. One of my students is highly motivated by music, so we use this to keep him actively engaged. My students are starting to pick up on the signs, and it's amazing to see them "singing" along! 

Interactive Calendar Template 

(Boardmaker Studio)

Weather Check 

After calendar, we check the temperature. I move the arrow for my older students to see on the temperature gage if the weather is hot, warm, cool, or cold. We discuss this orally and then we have a friend check the weather by looking out our window. The friend will tell us what the weather is like, and then we dress Joey for the day! I use a file folder system to store all of Joey's pieces and use my choice board to give selections to the students. Once Joey is dressed, we move on to a more hands-on calendar. 

Temperature Guide and Joey the Weather Guy from Unique Learning System

Choice Board 

Simple Hands-On Calendar

I re-invented my calendar from my larger calendar book set, to a more simplified version. In our simple version, we are working on finding the day, month, weather,  and temperature. I have been slowing adding more skills to this calendar, and this is where we are currently but we still have "yesterday was" and "tomorrow will be" to add. I think this will be a hard topic for my students. When using this simple calendar, I give my students a choice of 2 using our choice board. We love the choice board!

I put my calendar in a 2" inch binder for ease of use 

Simple Adapted Calendar

Last year, I used the more advanced version of this calendar book for my learners. Here are some picks below of how I set that one up and the link to the resource. I have recently updated this version to have better fonts, graphics and a cleaner looking design. I also added American Sign Language options for teachers using ASL to teach days of the week. Each student had one of these calendar books to follow along!

Here is a picture of the updated version. 

Adapted Interactive Calendar

Music 

After we complete the calendar, I use youtube to project videos of various songs. We sing more days of the week songs to work on sign language. We also sing a song called "one little finger" every day. My hope was to get the students involved in doing the hand motions to the song. At first it was a lot of hand over hand, but now the students are catching on and participating in the hand motions. We also will sing songs that have to do with our core-vocabulary words. 

Days of the Week Song

One Little Finger

Walking Walking  (a sample of a song I would use for core vocab word "STOP"

Adapted Books

After we have completed all of the music activities I introduce our daily adapted book. I am really focusing hard on using adapted books that are related to the science and social studies content I am currently instructing. This has pushed me to create some of my own supplemental adapted books and to think outside the box. When reading the books, I use my choice board to display picture options to students about the books. We will use AAC devices to answer questions about the books. After we have read the story, we have reached about our 30 minute maximum. My students are antsy, need restroom breaks, and some even transition to gen ed.  If you are interested in more themed adapted books, check out my instagram page. I share videos of our monthly adapted books. Look for them in my highlighted stories. 

This is how morning meeting looks in our classroom! How do you do morning meeting?

 

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Differentiating for Non-Writers- Beginning to Mid Level

Who are these strategies for?

These strategies are for students who struggle to form letters. They may be cognitively able to produce written content but need access to assistive technology to do so. These students are working on forming sentences using capitalization, correct grammar, and punctuation. They may be beginning to form paragraphs.

Beginning Writers

Currently I do not have anyone at this level, but I will share how I would instruct this level if I did have students learning to form letters. We use the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum for writing instruction. Once students have the pre-writing strokes, we work on letter formations using the sticks from Handwriting Without Tears. I laminated the stick mats from the program and put soft velcro along the lines. We practice tracing the lines on the soft velcro for some sensory input. I add hard velcro to the sticks and then we practice putting the sticks on the lines. Then once they have mastered that, I take the velcro away and use the mats and sticks. I do not have a picture of these at this time because a co-worker is currently borrowing them. 

Handwriting Without Tears Curriculum

After learning letter formations, we start working on HWT journals. I start with the earliest level which is actually pre-k (Get Ready for School). This practices forming letters and holding a crayon/pencil in a pincer grasp.

Mid-Level Non-Writers

My mid level non-writers are students who know all of their letters and sounds, are able to either orally or receptively identify the letters and can find them on their AAC devices or a computer. These students struggle with fine motor but are able to produce written text using assistive devices. I should add that these students are in 2nd/3rd grade. This is currently where most of my writers are. 

Writer's Workshop for Non-Writers 

I do Writer's Workshop during my center rotations weekly. It is time for me to sit and specifically work on writing skills. This is our weak area, and I know this. I decided to make it my goal to tackle this head on this year. In order to do that I needed to think outside the box and collaborate, collaborate, collaborate! My Occupational Therapist and I have worked very hard to make sure have motivating and engaging activities. Each student has a writing folder that I keep their work in. I meet with my students twice a week to sit down and focus on writing skills. 

Our first step in the process of creating our writing piece is to choose a picture to write about. I use real-life language cards similar to these ones below: 

Once the students have chosen their picture we complete a graphic organizer answering WH questions about the picture. I created a strip of these for visual reference and every time we discuss the WH questions I make sure that I am pointing to that visual in reference. We also use this strip when reading books. I feel this is important to make real world connections and generalize the topics. This usually takes us the entire time we meet to complete. 

Graphic Organizer with Visual Support

The next time we meet, we use the graphic organizer to form our sentence. Even though writing is extremely difficult for this group, I feel it's important to continue to show them that written words have meaning. I will write their sentence out on a large sentence strip to model what their sentence should look like. We practice reading the sentence. Then, I will highlight a sentence strip for them and have them write it. After we have written the sentence we use our assistive tech to type it. 

Assistive Technology 

We use a variety of different tools to complete written work. These students will probably use these tools as a more practical way of producing written communication in the real world. Here are some of the things that we are working on at this level:

Keyboarding Without Tears: These students are learning the ins and outs of a keyboard and getting familiarized with it. This program is amazing! My students actually BEG me to practice typing because they love it so much! This program using some of the basics from Handwriting Without Tears and correlates it onto the technology. I have a large keyboard mat that we use to practice finding the letters and placing them on the mat. I have seen significant improvement in my student's and their typing skills! The program is online based and only costs $10 per student. It tracks their data and gives you a ton of lesson plans that go with it. I highly recommend this program! Link below. 

Keyboarding Without Tears

Alpha Smart: We rarely use this anymore because we have upgraded to laptops in my classroom. So my students are typically producing their written text on the laptop. We used this when practicing typing names and when we quickly wanted to type a sight word. We have the keys color coded and in lowercase letters because one of my students struggled to match upper-lowercase letters. This gave her the opportunity to produce written text without the struggle of matching upper-lowercase letters.

Label maker: This was a game changer for us. We use the label maker for daily name practice, typing our names for papers, and reducing the stress that written work puts on my students. I have students who literally have meltdowns when they are expected to write. The label maker eliminates that stress and allows the students to answer questions to papers, math problems, etc. and print with 1 button! They love it and are motivated by it. It's cheap and easy!

AAC Devices: Students will answer WH questions using their devices to fill in their graphic organizers. We then work together to produce that into a sentence on their device. See the next paragraph for more information on this, this is a topic I am passionate about!

Using AAC Devices to Produce Written Text

This is a topic I am so passionate about. AAC devices or "talkers" in my classroom, are of utmost importance to us. I model using the talkers on how to create a sentence, and we work hard get the students to create full sentences. My students are currently at this level. They have had their devices since Kindergarten, and are way passed core vocabulary. Forming sentences is our next level. 

I often have been asked, "are they truly reading?" when they use their talkers to read to me. I will write a blog post about this later, but I get the same question when they produce written text on their talker "are they truly writing?" Yes. Yes, they are. The way I see it is, as a typical child thinks in their head what they want to write and their brain transmits that information and they produce written text on paper, they are writing. For a student using an AAC device it is EXACTLY the same, sans writing. Their brain is coming up with the words they want, they are finding those words on their devices, and they are producing a written sentence. This is real life. This is how they will communicate their thoughts out in the real world, we are just taking away the paper. This is so important! It's the same way with reading, and I hope to write a blog post soon on how I taught my students who are nonverbal to read. 

This is what we are currently working on in our classroom! I hope some of these ideas help you with your non-writers! If you have any great ideas you have and use in your classroom, please share! I love learning new ways to teach! 

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Adapting my Teaching

I started out my teaching career in a mild to moderate self-contained classroom. Our district had purchased us the Unique Learning System and I had to muddle my way through it. There is a lot of content provided in the units each month, and I started to get the hang of it. Then, this past year, while I was on maternity leave no less, I was told that my position would be slightly changing. I would no longer be teaching the K-1 mild/moderate self-contained kids, but would be teaching the K-3 moderate to severe medically fragile children.

What. A. Change. I quickly realized that reading the books for the unit and expecting them to sit and listen was just not doing the trick. So as all good teachers do, I changed up my entire routine. Instead of having them sit and listen to stories and expecting them to soak all of that information in, I got to work providing two to three adapted books per unit. I honestly didn't know where to start! I ended up catching some videos from Little Miss Kim's class on instagram. She had some amazing adapted books and so I was inspired to get to work! So, I started by modifying some of the books from the Unique unit and then I started to get more comfortable with adapting books. I started to create some of my own supplements to go along with the units each month. I started finding books from different sources and adapting them. My students started responding to the books, interacting, engaging, touching them, looking at them, and I mean truly looking at them!

Now my students are engaging in adapted books that go along with the unit theme daily. It's a lot of work. It truly is, but my students are so engaged, and accurately responding to questions about the text that it is 100% worth it. As we read a book I add it into a rotation for their task work, having them work 1-1 with a paraprofessional reading the book and taking data on comprehension.

Here are some pictures of the Unique Learning System books that I have adapted: 

I use the communication boards as matching icons to the story. Right now my students are at the level of choosing from two picture choices. 

Here are the Reading A-Z books that I adapted and some Scholastic books I plan on using in our classroom: 

Here is a peek at the supplemental activities I created for this specific unit on weather: 

here is the link to my TPT shop for this product: Weather Adapted Book Pack. Head on over to my instagram account to see some quick videos on these books (@multiplymagnificentlearners) Multiply Magnificent Learners

Here are some other activities I plan to use to reinforce the unit concepts daily in our morning meeting: 

These resources are from the Unique Curriculum. We will use this to determine what type of clothes Joey will wear daily according to the weather in Ohio. 

These are pictures of the mini-posters I made for my adapted weather pack in my TPT store. We will refer to these daily to discuss what season we are in. 

                                                       

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